06 Jun 2016

Deputy permanent secretary at Botswana Government Communication and Information System (BGCIS), Dr Jeff Ramsay, has emphasised the importance of Botswana and the African continent becoming part of the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) debate.

Officiating at the ICANN activity that was part of the Africa Internet Summit (AIS) in Gaborone on Saturday, he said Internet had become the core of global debates in global communications, hence its management should be internationalised. 

“As Botswana and Africans, we should become part of the internet debate because it is a political, social and economic debate,” he said.

He said it was important for Africa to engage in high level dialogues about the future of the internet as the critical development tool for the continent.

Dr Ramsay urged stakeholders to come up with an agenda for Africa for them to feature in future ICANN debates.

He said in this day and age, everything had become digital, hence it was important for Africa to engage more in ICANN debates in order to become part of the new economy or the new global dialogue.

“Global manufacturing has also become digital with manufacturing systems going transnational,” he said.

On other issues, Dr Ramsay said internet was rapidly evolving into a tool not only for mass communication and service delivery, but in the context of the digital integration of marketing and retailing with smart factories and core processes of production.

“Some go as far as to speak of now entering a 4th Industrial Revolution with the development of a new digital economy,” he said.

Stakeholders in the internet industry from across Africa attended the meeting hosted by Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (BOCRA) .

ICANN was established in 1998 as a non-profit corporation registered in California in the US. ENDS